IT pros are prepared to take a break from family and friends during the holidays to fix corporate tech issues.

This year, 46% of IT pros will be on-call over the holidays, according to Ipswitch. Past experience shows it's necessary: nearly one in three IT pros has experienced a major network outage during the holiday season, the network management vendor reports.

Some common problems that have cropped up over previous Christmas and New Year's breaks include: inability to access the network remotely (cited by 51%); poor application performance (26%); and forgotten passwords (17%).

Even if they're not called in, 56% of IT pros surveyed will be thinking about work when they're off the clock.

"Be sure to thank your hardworking IT pro this holiday season, as they may be giving up downtime with friends and family to make sure your networks have uptime," said Ennio Carboni, president and general manager at the Ipswitch Network Management Division, in a statement.

Looking ahead to 2014, respondents' New Year's resolutions include spending less time dealing with network problems (56%); increasing IT security measures (33%); and addressing network problems related to BYOD (11%).

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